When the first Christian missionaries arrived in North West Europe they encountered a people known as the Celts with a reverence for Apples.

Of course the people didn’t refer to themselves by that name. They used whatever their tribal designation was. Loyalty to the tribe was of first importance. Though they were divided as tribes they generally shared a common spirituality. A spirituality based on closeness to the land, to the seasons and a reverence for the forces of nature that could nurture them or destroy them. The Priests and Judges of their spirituality were the Druids.  The Druids believed that Apples were sacred,

So the Christians told the story of Adam and Eve and though their Bible held no reference to Apples, they told the people that the forbidden fruit was the same fruit that the Druids held as sacred. They spread the story that the Apple was the fruit used by their god of evil to draw Adam and Eve into wickedness and death. The story can still be heard today but that twisting of the tale was pure propaganda.

So why was the Apple sacred to the Druids? What was the secret that the Christians wanted to hide?

It was believed in those days that the World was made of five elements; those elements were; Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The fifth element that bound them all together was Spirit. These elements were usually represented by a Pentacle, a five pointed star. If you take an Apple and place it on its side and instead of cutting it from stem to flower, cut it through the equator. You will see that in the center of an apple is a Pentacle. Inside the Pentacle lie the Apple seeds so the pentacle holds the seeds of life. If anyone would eat the Apple seeds they would detect a somewhat bitter taste. This is because Apple seeds contain cyanide. A very small dose and quite harmless but a large enough quantity could be lethal. So the Apple contains a Pentacle with the seeds of Life and Death.

This was the secret of the Apple. The reason why it was so sacred and holds such an important place in the spiritual life of those of us today who seek the wisdom of our forefathers, lies in its symbolism. A simple fruit that nourishes nurtures and teaches a lesson that reaches out of our past into our lives today.